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Keiji Inafune doesn't need Capcom to make the game of his dreams. He just needs a crowd.

Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune isn't shy when it comes to the problems facing Japanese games.

"I hope Japanese game developers are breaking through the stagnation," Inafune told IGN when speaking about his previous game, Soul Sacrifice. "However, the reality isn't as good as I want it to be. I see they're starting to be aware of the problem and that they have to do something. They know they have to learn more from western games and create games that'll sell more in the western market. However, they don't know what to do or how to do it.

"Words are not enough, we must act and prove it," he said to IGN. "Unless at least a few titles from Japan make it to the top 10 games of the year worldwide, we won't prove it."

Inafune's newest project may not make the top 10 list, but he's certainly taking a page from the West.

Mighty No. 9 launched on Kickstarter Saturday with a $900,000 crowdfunding goal. This is one of the first Kickstarter projects from a Japanese developer, and especially someone as high profile as Inafune.

The game looks a lot like Mega Man, and the 2.5D “classic Japanese side-scrolling action” sounds like it will play a lot like Mega Man, too, with players who can “run, jump, blast, and transform your way through six stages” or more depending on what stretch goals are reached.

The main character is Beck, “the 9th in a line of powerful robots, and the only one not infected by a mysterious computer virus that has caused mechanized creatures the world over to go berserk.” Beck can transform into all sorts of different forms all of which is tied to the combat. It sounds great.

Currently, Mighty No. 9 is being developed for PC with gamepad support, though depending on funding it could come to other platforms including home consoles, Mac, and Linux.

Some rewards are being offered in two flavors: Western or Japanese, with backers able to choose their preferred version. This includes box-art, art books, and so forth.

The game is set to launch Spring of 2015. It follows the cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3 by Capcom in 2011, a project Inafune was deeply invested in. In some ways, it's no surprise to see him turn to crowdfunding and away from publishers. Why not? Why should the creator of Mega Man be shackled to a publisher that won't allow his creative dream to come to fruition?

Mighty No. 9 may not be a Mega Man game in name, but it certainly looks to be one in spirit. The only downside here is that 2015 is an awful long ways away.

Read more about the game, its rewards, and see more of the concept art at the Kickstarter page. As of this writing, the project has already crossed $240,000 with nearly 4,000 backers, and I suspect that it will fund by end of day tomorrow and go on to meet most if not all of its stretch goals.

This is how badly people want more games like Mega Man---and how weird it is that publishers seem uninterested in making those games.

Update: As of this morning at 7AM PST, the Kickstarter has reached $450,000 or 50% funding. I continue to predict full funding happens today, probably sometime this afternoon.

Update 2: It is now 9:45 PST and the Kickstarter has raised just over $750,000 with nearly 13,000 backers. It may not hit the full $900,000 by end of day (PST) but it should have no trouble funding. Now, hopefully Capcom let's it be and doesn't try to press any sort of copyright suit against Inafune over Beck's Mega Man look.

Update 3: As of this morning, the Kickstarter has crossed the $900,000 goal. That means we can start looking at the stretch goals:

It's a shame the console versions are all the way up at 2.5 million. I'd prefer that to giant question marks or a making-of documentary. But the first stretch goal may be the most important: two new stages. More game is always better. And at 1.5 million there's a new game plus and turbo mode, which is also cool.

(There's Mac and Linux versions at 1.35 million, but nobody plays games on Mac or Linux anyways...right?)